by Gary Gibson
At the same time, Kendrick noticed a helicopter lifting from the deck of Draeger’s ship. It landed on the launch platform’s landing pad barely a minute later and he watched as several small figures stepped out and looked around, half bent over under the whirring blades, before stepping quickly to one side. He could see Draeger among them, and the others, he was sure, were the men he’d seen waiting in the shadows of the ruined buildings of LA. They all wore spacesuits modified with black Kevlar body armour.
A moment later another figure stepped out of the helicopter just before it lifted to return to the tanker. This time it was Smeby.
“Jesus Christ,” he heard someone mutter. Kendrick turned to see Sabak standing nearby. “Will you look at that?”
They all turned to look as one, as three simultaneous explosions of light shot upwards from the main deck of the tanker. Something flared, arrowing in towards the three jets which were now twisting round in their trajectory to take another pass over the launch platform. This time, Kendrick was sure, they would fire on it.
He glanced around, seeing how utterly exposed they all were on the gantry. There would never be enough time to get them all inside the shuttle, and even that was far from the safest place to be.
Then he saw the jets veer in a curve that would bring the shuttle directly into their line of fire. A moment later two of the aircraft twisted away in a high-speed manoeuvre as the missiles launched from Draeger’s ship rapidly closed in. Kendrick felt his heart crawl into his throat as two of the pursuing missiles sped into the ocean in an explosion of salt spray.
The third missile, however, zeroed in on the third jet, whose pilot had veered too close to the waves, and as he pulled up and away from the ocean the missile gained on him. The two met in a blossoming ball of fire a few hundred metres away from the launch platform. People yelled and screamed around Kendrick as shredded pieces of the jet’s fuselage shot overhead. A deep shudder ran through the platform’s structure.
He gazed, dry-mouthed, at the shuttle. That had been far too close.
“We’ve got to launch now,” Kendrick yelled at Sabak who was standing just a few feet away. “For Christ’s sake, get everybody on board!”
Sabak shot him an angry look. “What the hell do you think we’re already doing?”
Kendrick looked around to see the remaining two jets swoop off into the far distance, half a dozen of Draeger’s choppers in pursuit of them.
There was a sudden altercation at the head of the line. Kendrick watched silently as an elderly couple, their faces distorted and ugly from runaway augmentation growth, refused to get on board. He could easily understand, since he had his own doubts about boarding a flying bomb while it was coming under attack. He watched as they hurried back past him: the old woman weeping, her partner stony-faced but clearly frightened. Kendrick turned and watched one or two people at the rear of the line break away and go towards them, presumably to attempt to persuade them not to turn back.
“Is this going to be safe? Are those planes going to come back?” asked the woman standing in front of Kendrick. She was wide-eyed with fear. Like the rest, she carried her helmet in a knapsack over her shoulder, but she wore an incongruous brightly coloured scarf that covered most of her neck where it was exposed under the heavy rim of the spacesuit’s neck ring.
“I think we’ll be just fine,” Kendrick lied, his voice tight. “We’ll get on board, and then . . .”
She nodded. Kendrick could see how badly she was trembling. He looked up and down the line, shocked by how many of those around him were obviously in the later stages of rogue augment growth. These, then, were the ones who had nothing to lose, who possessed only the belief that, in some far-future place, they might have everything to gain.
Kendrick looked again towards the horizon but could see nothing from where he was standing. If the choppers were still in pursuit, they were far away on the other side of the platform.
Kendrick duly arrived at the front of the queue where a technician guided him speedily on board through an airlock inserted into what had originally been a pair of cargo-bay doors. He turned around just before he entered to see that the high-capacity elevator that had lifted them into the gantry was rising again. Draeger stepped out, dressed in a grey-blue spacesuit with racing stripes on the arms, a lightweight helmet tucked into the crook of his arm. Marlin Smeby appeared by his side, followed by the rest of Draeger’s entourage.
Kendrick spoke for a moment to the technician who was processing everyone on board, then waited until Draeger and his men, queuing dutifully, reached the shuttle. Sabak was talking quietly to Draeger, and he glanced over at Kendrick with a wary expression when he noticed him waiting. Everyone else was already on board.
Draeger studied them both in turn with dark, hard eyes before smiling tightly. “I appreciate your help in this matter,” he said to them both. “There are wonderful things happening just a few thousand miles above our heads. We may soon be witnessing things that very few people are ever likely to, at least in this life.”
Kendrick glanced over at Smeby who gazed back levelly. Smeby, he knew, was the one he really had to worry about. Smeby was Draeger’s right hand.
Draeger smiled disingenuously. Kendrick turned away from him to enter the shuttle.
Three more technicians guided them into a tall vertical bay filled with seats, all facing upwards. Kendrick tried to ignore the feeling of vertigo but with minimal success. He was led to his seat via a complicated array of ladders and strapped carefully into place. Buddy was positioned nearby. They nodded to each other.
“I’m sure there were more people than this,” Kendrick called to Buddy over the tumult of voices. Some others nearby were weeping, not without reason. One or two were even praying, although Kendrick couldn’t help but wonder to what or to whom their prayers were directed.
Buddy looked pointedly over his shoulder at Draeger and his men who were being helped into seats at the very rear of the passenger bay. It occurred to Kendrick that the only reason there were any seats for them was because of the Labrats who had turned back or who had died before they could make it here. He thought of Erik, dying by a frozen northern shore, and of Audrey, back in LA. And Caroline. He stared over again at Draeger and nursed the hate that burned deep within him.
Then, finally, even the technicians were gone and the passengers were alone. The air was filled with nervous muttering and the incessant litanies of the few people who were praying.
The same image played over and over in Kendrick’s mind: the third Los Muertos shuttle barely getting off the ground before exploding, its sides rupturing and splitting, liquid fire spewing out, anything alive inside it obliterated instantly . . . he gripped the armrests of his seat so hard that sharp spikes of pain radiated through his hands.
Instinct told Kendrick to get himself out of the shuttle, to run, to throw himself into the Pacific and start swimming. But just then a deep pulsation rattled through the craft, building to a powerful and steady roar. The craft lurched violently, and he let out a yell. People around him screamed, clearly believing as he did that the attacking jets had returned, or that the whole platform had been holed and was sinking. For a moment he imagined that the shuttle had been blown free from its gantry and was falling towards the ocean. Powerful vibrations made his teeth rattle.
Very gently, the shuttle swayed. Panicked, Kendrick glanced over at Buddy, and to his consternation saw him grinning happily. Turning in Kendrick’s direction, Buddy gave him a thumbs-up.
Next followed a terrible lurch, and the whole craft began to tremble with furious energy. An enormous invisible hand seemed to press down on Kendrick’s face and chest and he writhed desperately.
“When are we taking off?” someone shouted over the tumult.
“We already have,” Kendrick heard Buddy yell. Barely audible, there were a few half-hearted cheers and whoops.
They were off.
Fifteen minutes later Sabak unstrapped himself and floated over
to Buddy, conferring with him briefly. Kendrick gripped his armrests, convinced he was falling, knowing it was only the lack of gravity that made him feel that way. Most of the other passengers would remain strapped in for the duration of their short flight to the space station. He still couldn’t quite believe they had not been blown out of the skies.
He found it wasn’t quite so difficult to adapt to free fall as he might have expected. In fact, once he was out of his seat it was kind of fun.
Buddy unstrapped himself next and floated over to Kendrick. “We need to talk further with Sabak about Draeger, and we don’t have much time to figure out what we’re going to do once we get to the Archimedes.”
“All that really matters is that nobody makes the mistake of trusting him.”
“Those guys with him . . .”
Kendrick glanced carefully to the rear of the cabin where Draeger had unstrapped, as had Smeby and the rest of them. They still remained carefully apart from everyone else.
“You might want to assume that his men are Augments, too,” Kendrick replied.
Buddy looked at him quizzically. “You mean Labrats? They don’t look—”
“Not Labrats. Black-market work – at least one of them. I’ve met others, too, including a woman employed by Draeger. She was also an Augment but I’d be surprised if she was ever within a thousand miles of the Maze.”
Buddy frowned. “There’s a shitload of international laws against . . .” He stopped, and pressed one hand against the side of his head. “Jesus, just listen to me. So you’ve dealt with these guys before?”
“Only Smeby.” Kendrick nodded at the man in question. “He’s not to be trusted under any circumstances.”
There was a commotion, and they glanced over to see that Sabak had opened a hatch. Behind it lay a tiny porthole, and Draeger had floated over to stare out through it.
Looking around at the other passengers, Kendrick could see from the consternation and anger on their faces that they were now well aware who their unwelcome guest was.
Sabak floated over and put a hand on Kendrick’s and Buddy’s shoulders. “Gentlemen, I want you to come and see exactly where we’re going.”
As he guided them forward, Kendrick flailed about uncertainly for a moment but Buddy kept a firm grip on his shoulder as they eased through a pressurized door into the cockpit area.
There was a crew of four, and Kendrick suspected that one or two of them might turn out to be Labrats. But it was impossible to tell since they were all wearing spacesuits.
Beyond them he could see stars, the bright curve of the Earth visible over to one side, and something else in the far distance: a dark grey cylinder floating against a sea of black velvet.
Sabak moved forward to chat to the pilots. They all looked relaxed and happy, and Kendrick wished that he could feel the same.
Sabak returned to their side shortly. “We’re coming in for an approach pretty soon.”
“How close did it get down there?” asked Kendrick.
Sabak raised his eyebrows. “Pretty close. I find this difficult to admit, but Draeger’s the only reason we got this far.” He shook his head. “I think he must be obsessed with the Archimedes, wanting to come here in person. That does take a certain kind of guts.”
Buddy nodded. “Yeah, but he’s only going to stay friendly for as long as we serve his purpose. We’ve got to start being real careful.”
“Sir?”
Sabak glanced over at the crew member who had spoken.
“We’ve got visual contact with the two Los Muertos shuttles.”
Kendrick peered forward intently to where the Archimedes was growing visibly larger. He saw a rough-hewn tube covered in fragile-looking gantries and docking facilities. Kendrick noticed that one of the shuttles was still locked into an external gantry, its nose pointing inwards towards the main body of the station. The other shuttle, though, appeared to have ripped itself free and only dozens of powerful-looking cables kept it connected to the station. They were twisting and writhing slowly like snakes, and the hull of the shuttle looked battered and broken, presumably from repeated impacts with the hull of the Archimedes. As they came even closer, they could see an intermittent sparkle of light inside a deep wound in the shuttle’s structure.
Sabak spoke up. “Looks like they’ve got something burning inside. Wouldn’t be possible unless something was feeding it – probably broken fuel and air lines. Can we get a zoom on that?”
“Sure,” said one of the pilots, and a screen displayed a close-up of the damaged shuttle.
“It looks like one of its engines exploded,” said Buddy. “Something blew up on the inside and ripped through the hull.”
“What the hell could do something like that?” Kendrick asked.
“There’s no other ships in the vicinity,” replied the pilot, turning a little in his seat to give Kendrick and the rest a significant look. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like they tried to get away from it.”
The second pilot glanced over her shoulder with an expression clearly saying Tell me what in God’s name is going on here. Kendrick caught her eye and shrugged feebly. She frowned at him and turned back.
Kendrick continued to study the Archimedes with interest, as Sabak consulted with the two pilots about docking strategies. After a few minutes’ discussion they settled for another gantry that was positioned a little further around the circumference of the station. They were closer now to the exterior of the Archimedes and Kendrick gazed at the ripped-apart shuttle in horrified fascination. Nobody could have survived that sort of damage, he thought.
Their view changed further as they approached their selected gantry, the Archimedes’ speed of rotation slowing to an apparent nil. Sabak guided them both to the rear of the cockpit where a row of tiny plastic seats were attached to the bulkhead.
They buckled in and waited. Soon a heavy, clanging reverberation rattled through the hull, as gravity returned.
The sudden change was jarring. Kendrick pictured the shuttle being whirled around now by the station as it rotated, providing artificial gravity as it tried to fling the incoming ship loose. They’d docked with the shuttle’s underbelly facing outward, allowing them to walk around inside the shuttle without feeling as though they were the wrong way up.
Sabak unstrapped himself and motioned to Kendrick and Buddy to do likewise. Then he led them back into the short corridor connecting the cockpit to the main passenger bay.
“Wait just one second,” Sabak told them, pulling open a section of the wall to reveal a deep cabinet. There were weapons stored inside – rifles, pistols and what appeared to be grenades. There were also bricks of plastic explosive.
Sabak extracted a pair of side arms and handed one each to his companions. Buddy handled his with practised efficiency, nodding with apparent satisfaction.
Kendrick stared down suspiciously at the gun in his own hand.
“Just hold on to it,” Buddy advised him. “I don’t think it’s likely that you’ll have to use it. Give it here.” He took the weapon from Kendrick and slotted in an ammunition clip. “This catch here on top is the safety, so just leave it where it is unless you feel you need to use the gun. Got that?”
“I think so.”
“Meanwhile keep it out of sight. We don’t want Draeger’s men knowing that we’re armed. Any small advantage we have can only be good for us.”
Kendrick caught Sabak’s eye. “Draeger and his men – did anyone check them for weapons?”
“There was neither the time nor the opportunity,” Sabak replied sourly. “Which is another good reason for making sure we’re ready for anything.”
The flight crew caught up with them and Sabak doled weapons out to them as well, keeping a cautious eye on the door to the passenger area. Several Labrats – the only one Kendrick recognized was Veliz – slipped through from the passenger bay, and Sabak armed them too.
“What about all the rest of them?” said Buddy, nodding towards the
door. “None of that lot came up here expecting to be combatants.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Sabak replied darkly. “We should split into two groups once we’re further in. Some of us will move ahead and deal with any Los Muertos who may have been left behind. The other group can stay near the docking area and guard the rest of our lot.”
“And Draeger?” asked Kendrick.
“The question is whether he’s likely to try anything once we’re inside.”
“I’m sure of it. But then there’s the matter of whether we’re really going to let him have what he wants.” Kendrick looked at Sabak questioningly.
“I didn’t expect we’d have to deal with Draeger when we got here. Which may have been a glaring mistake on our part.” Sabak turned to Buddy. “You’ve got as much military experience as I have, so when we’re in there I want you to help us keep an eye on Draeger and his goons. The question remains: are they likely to be armed?”
Buddy shrugged. “Heavily, I’d be inclined to guess.”
Sabak nodded in agreement. “Okay, let’s go ahead on the assumption that we’ll be dealing with opposition at some point. If we find no survivors from the Los Muertos shuttles, maybe we can step things down a little, except where Draeger is concerned.”
“Draeger’s going to be searching for the same records that I want,” Kendrick reminded them.
Sabak squinted. “The Archimedes is a big place. You’d need a couple of weeks to find something that specific. And a couple of weeks is what you don’t have.”
Kendrick shook his head. “I need to locate a research facility in the second chamber. That’s exactly where I’ll find what I’m looking for.”
Sabak shook his head slowly. “A research facility?”
One of the flight crew spoke up. “That’s where all the station’s functions are centrally controlled, sir. The computer systems are evenly distributed throughout the entire shell so that the station can continue functioning in case of serious trauma. But the research facility is the central point where you input data directly and get collated feedback.”
